


The way it should be

by Ttamer2468



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 16:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21001004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ttamer2468/pseuds/Ttamer2468
Summary: I just wanted to make a happy story and this idea came to me in the shower this morning lol





	The way it should be

**Author's Note:**

> It's a little angsty in the beginning but its very short lived.

Richie woke up with a dim light shining in his face from somewhere, a familiar smell in the air, and the faint sound of old music playing from a radio in the distance.

He rubbed his eyes and tried to sit up but felt like he was about to fall. He stopped moving to regain balance and realized he was in a hammock. But not just any hammock. After looking around more he finally realized where he was. The clubhouse. But not the one he revisited as an adult. This is the clubhouse from when they were kids. Just like Ben had shown it to them for the first time after building it. 

Richie didn't know what was going on. He threw his legs over the side of the hammock and tried to assess the situation. He was an adult still. He could see that much. But it's like he was back in time.

"What the hell?" He got up and looked around the room some more. Everything is right where they left it as kids. The shower caps, paddle ball, the magazine he read in the hammock with Eddie. 

Eddie… where are the others? Why is he here?

He walked towards the ladder to leave the clubhouse but was stopped by a voice. 

"I knew you would show up here. It's where I did."

Richie spun around and spotted Stan sitting in a chair in the corner of the clubhouse. Stan… but younger. He's reading a book and got the radio playing on the table next to him.

"Stan… you… what the fuck? What's happening? Where are we?"

"Calm down Richie. Freaking out isn't gonna help anything." He said while laughing and putting his book down. He got out of his chair to walk towards Richie "but to make this less awkward I need you to take a look at this." Stan pulled a photo out of his pocket and gave it to Richie. 

It was a picture of a curly haired man and a woman next to him. Almost like on a vacation. The man… looked exactly like Stan. Richie flipped the photo over and there were words on the back written in sharpie marker 'Stan and Patricia Uris vacation in Hawaii 2015'

Richie gasped and looked back up from the photo expecting to see Stan as a kid still, only to be replaced with the same man from the picture standing in front of him smiling. 

Stan reached out and took the picture back from Richie and placed it back in his pocket. "There. Just a little update as to what I look like so you didn't look at me as a kid forever." Stan turned his head and grumbled something out that he thought Richie didn't hear. Something along the lines of "Gonna have to do that 4 more times…" he turned back to Richie. "You're an idiot you know that Richie?" 

Richie still didn't know what was going on so he didn't have the will to reply back with something witty. "Stan. Where am I?"

Stan looked to the ground and back up at Richie with a look on his face. Like he was trying to find the best way to let Richie down gently somehow.

Stan finally spoke after a few more seconds of silence. "How about this. So you don't get scared. Why don't you follow me huh? I know you have a ton of questions and to be honest I can't answer all of them. I haven't been here too long myself. C'mon." As Stan said this he made his way to the exit of the clubhouse and climbed the ladder without giving Richie a chance to ask anymore questions. Richie followed hesitantly.

They made their way through the forest on the trail they took as kids to get to and from the town to the clubhouse. Speaking of the town, Derry, it was coming into view through the gap in the trees. But this felt different. Looking at Derry now. Even from a distance he could see… a difference. 

As they made their way deeper into Derry, Richie started noticing small things. There were no missing posters on any of the buildings or electrical poles anymore. There wasn't the distant sound of a kid getting bullied or an angry drunk taking their anger out on whatever was nearby. This isn't the shithole town he remembered. This almost felt… happier… more vibrant and full of life. People were smiling and chatting amongst themselves and Richie couldn't help but smile as well. 

Stan and Richie were walking in comfortable silence through the town. Richie turned to his left and stopped dead in his tracks which made Stan stop as well to look at what he was looking at. Two men. Sitting down on a bench holding hands outside the Derry supermarket. They were laughing and smiling and sharing an ice cream cone. And no one was staring. No one was judging them. No one was abusing them or calling them slurs or trying to murder them. They were happy. Richie started to cry but Stan ushered him to return to their walk before Richie drew attention towards them. 

Richie wanted to know where they were going but before he could say anything, Richie noticed that Stan had stopped and turned towards a house. A familiar house. Eddie's childhood house. They were hardly ever allowed inside because of his mother's strict rules and because she didn't particularly like Richie near Eddie.

"Go inside." Stan said sternly. Richie turned towards him to speak but Stan cut him off. "I was being honest when I said I don't know much more than you about where we are Richie. I'm still trying to figure it out myself but I think I have a pretty good idea." Stan turned towards the house and shook his head in amusement. "Hell, at least you're taking it better than him. I couldn't get him to stop rambling and freaking out." Stan started to turn and leave but said one last thing. "If you need me, you know where I lived. See ya." 

Richie watched Stan walk away slowly but before he could get too far away he remembered something. If Richie needed to see a current picture of Stan to see the adult before him then that means "Hey! Stan you asshole do I still look like a kid to you!?"

Stan started laughing and turned around to shout back at Richie. "I looked all of you up before I- well… you know." And Stan left it at that before he turned around and started walking again. He didn't know. Not really at least. He hoped he would soon though or he's gonna go crazy.

Richie turned back towards the house. Eddie's house. Go in is what Stan said. Ok. Here goes nothing.

Richie walked up the porch steps of the house to the front door and tried the doorknob. It didn't budge. Locked. Of course. What the hell Stan. Richie was about to turn around and run back to Stan before he heard murmuring and a slew of curses echo throughout the inside of the house. He heard footsteps approach the front door before stopping on the other side of it where Richie was standing. A few seconds pass and a voice calls out from the other side. Another voice he's also all too familiar with. But this one gives him butterflies in his stomach. "Who is it!?"

"Eds…? Is that you?" 

There was silence on the other side of the door now. After awhile Richie hears about 3 to 5 locks being undone on the door before it finally swings open revealing none other than Eddie himself. Richie screamed. Because this Eddie has a giant gaping bleeding hole through his stomach. And suddenly all of what happened rushes back to him. 

Eddie had died. Pennywise had killed him. Taken him away from Richie. After the battle, the losers all went on with their lives and tried to make the best of it. Richie, however, couldn't. He felt he would never find love. Eddie was his one and only and he would never be able to have that. Richie didn't want to continue anymore, he felt there was no reason too. He started drinking more and more and soon that started interfering with his show. His manager eventually stepped in and fired him. One night while Richie was drunk he decided to take any and every single pill he could find in his medicine cabinet. He's not sure exactly which ones, but it doesn't matter. It got him the result he wanted. And now here he is. 

He's not sure what to do with all this new information. Stan being here… seeing him as a kid and as an adult. Seeing Eddie in front of him the way he left him. It finally clicks for Richie. He knows where he is. At least he thinks. But it's too much. It all feels like a cruel joke. He can't get any words out. So he starts to cry. And Eddie does the same. They embrace each other and stay that way, crying into each others shoulders, grasping at any article of clothing on one another that they can for who knows how long. 

After they seperate, they talk. Eddie saw Stan as a kid as well when he came here. Eddie appeared in the hammock at the clubhouse and Stan showed him around just like he did Richie. Eddie tells Richie that he knows about the kissing bridge. That he had followed Richie out of Neibolt to the kissing bridge and saw Richie recarve the R+E into the bridge. But Richie couldn't see Eddie. No matter how hard he tried to get Richie's attention. He tells Richie that after he drove away, that he stayed at the bridge and cried until fell asleep. That's when he woke up in the hammock of the clubhouse with Stan. 

They don't know how much time has passed. Richie remembers what Eddie looked like before the stab in his cheek and stomach. Richie and Eddie finally become something. They move into Eddie's house and completely renovate all of it. To make it feel like their home instead of Eddie's mother. 

Stan visits and the three of them hang out almost every week. The town is peaceful. It's almost entirely different from the town they despised while growing up. No hate. No bigotry. No racism. All equal. 

Richie and Eddie get married and get a dog. Three dogs to be exact. They never seem to age here. 

Stan, Richie, and Eddie start to notice the people around town more and more and they become familiar looking. A lady who passed away down the road from Richie's house when he was younger was here. Alive and well just like he remembers her. And she's happy. And another thing they all noticed more and more. All the people who went missing because of pennywise throughout the years. They're all here. Happily living their afterlives without a care in the world and free from any worry.

They can only assume it's been years before they see another loser. Bill was the first one. Stan had greeted him like Richie and Eddie. Stan doesn't know why it's always him. But he's fine with it. He was always the one in the group who could get the others to keep a level head. 

Bill had died from a heart attack due to the stress of an upcoming movie he was directing. 

After Bill, it was a long time before one of the losers showed up again. But nevertheless Stan was there to greet Beverly as she awoke from the hammock dazed and confused. She had died from a simple car accident on the way to the grocery store. She told them she was 76. Richie, Eddie and Stan couldn't believe it's been that long. Beverly burst into tears when she learned that Richie finally got together with Eddie. Of course she knew all along. 

Ben was the next after Beverly. He was on one of his new buildings construction sites looking at the progress that was coming along when a brick from one of the floors 36 feet above fell onto his head. He cried more than Beverly after seeing Richie and Eddie together.

Mike was the last to join them. After years of dedicating most of his life in Derry, he finally got to see the world. Florida was his first stop. But it wasn't the destination that he loved as much. The traveling is what made him happy. After years at the library and living there rent free he had saved up so much money to just travel. It was all over the USA first. He went sightseeing and saw all of the national parks and monuments. After that he started traveling to other countries. He died at 98.

They're all here finally. They're all together. This time. Forever.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! :)


End file.
